Contents

Plot

The film tells of Dr. Jekyll (Fredric March), a kind doctor who
experiments with drugs because he's certain that within each man
lurks impulses for both good and evil.

Dr. Jekyll develops a drug to release the evil side in himself,
becoming the hard drinking, woman-chasing Mr. Hyde. Jekyll quickly
becomes addicted to the formula, and unable to control the violent
and unstable Mr. Hyde.

Background

The film, made prior to the full enforcement of the Production Code, is remembered today for
its strong sexual content, embodied mostly in the character of the
prostitute, Ivy Pearson, played by Miriam Hopkins. When the film was
re-released in 1936, the Code required 8 minutes to be removed
before the film could be distributed to theaters. This footage was
restored for the VHS and DVD releases.[2]

Fredric March as Mr. Hyde.

The secret of the astonishing transformation scenes was not
revealed for decades (Mamoulian himself revealed it in a volume of
interviews with Hollywood directors published under the title
The Celluloid Muse). A series of colored filters matching
the make-up was used, enabling the make-up applied in contrasting
colours, to be gradually exposed or made invisible. The change in
color was not visible on the black-and-white film.

Perc
Westmore's make-up for Hyde, simian and hairy with large canine teeth influenced greatly the popular
image of Hyde in media and comic books; in part this reflected the
novella's implication of Hyde as embodying repressed evil and hence
being semi-evolved or simian in appearance. The characters of
Muriel Carew and Ivy Pearson do not appear in Stevenson's original
story but do appear in the 1887 stage version by playwright Thomas
Russell Sullivan.

History
and Ownership

When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayerremade the film 10 years later
with Spencer
Tracy in the lead, the studio bought the rights to, and then
recalled every print of the Mamoulian version that it could locate
and most of the film was believed lost for decades. Ironically, the
Tracy version was much less well received and March jokingly sent
Tracy a telegram thanking him for the greatest boost to his
reputation of his entire career. (Tracy and March would later
appear together for the only time in 1960s Inherit The Wind)